Commemoration of World War I / Commémoration de la Première Guerre mondiale

Abstract

As far as farmer’s fields go, this one was packed. It was just past seven in the morning and a large crowd of people was quietly milling around the edges of the Lochnagar Crater near La Boiselle in northern France. On July 1st 1916, a mine was detonated under the German trenches at this site to launch the British offensive on the Somme. The explosion left a ninety-meter wide, twenty-meter deep hole. I stood in the crowd, along with a few dozen other participants of the Historial de la Grande Guerre’s annual colloquium and graduate summer school. The academic proceedings were on hold for the day so that participants could observe two ceremonies commemorating the Battle of the Somme.